Let us now try to answer the questions raised above because I want to include in your principle, your Priceless Treasure-Your kids,“A clean kid is a healthier kid”.

HYGIENE is a conditions & practices that serve to promote or preserve healthy or in other words CLEANLINESS as it relate to the overall goal of keep clean and stay healthy.

Children learn behaviors good and bad from their family and peers i.e. from home and school. They also observe it from their neighborhoods and in the communities they live in. Children are copies of us. They copy what adults do and say. If children are clean and tidy, it is because we teach them and become good examples to them. Combat children’s healthy problems through hygienic practices.

Do you know that each year more than ten million children under the age of five die, most from treatable and or preventable illnesses such as diarrhea, dehydration and respiratory infection? (UNICEF, State of the World’s Children 2006). Amusingly, relatively simple measures, consistent daily hygienic practices/cleanliness such as hand washing, good sanitation, and drink clean water, could have saved lives. Poor living conditions affect us all.

When parents are not healthy, they cannot provide for their families’ needs. And when children are not healthy, they cannot attend school or focus on their future.

Healthier environment will have a prompt impact on both, adults and children’s well-being.

The author of the book, A Clean Kid Is A Healthier Kid, said,    “Whatever the background the children come from – poor homes, living in the village, or in the towns, with few necessities, or excessive necessities, cleanliness supports healthy living and prevent many health problems. Cleanliness is a basis of healthy living and children are capable of applying it in their daily lives in order to stay and live healthy. All children need to grow up in a healthy, safe, and clean environment.

Keeping a Balanced View:

How Important Is Cleanliness?  Cleanliness means different things to different people. I cannot tell you how many times  I have told a five, six , or even seven years old child to wash her/his hands and face, and the child will go, hold her/his fingers under the running water and then wet her/his lips, and that was enough. Knowing this is an opportunity for one-on-one to set up practice and give on-the-sport guidance, I will take the child  back to the sink, scrubs her/his hands,  and face with plenty of soap, and water, regardless of her/his loud resistance. Should I have not  acted that way in the first place, the child would have believed that she/he did the right thing as she/he was told to do.

Of course, standards of cleanliness are not the same around the world, or in my house and your house! And people grow up with varying concepts of cleanliness. Once up on a time, a school was a place of an example of clean, well ordered environment to instill and inspire students with safety and healthy environment-GOOD HABITS OF CLEANLINESS-. Today, some school environments and /or  grounds are so full of unhealthy substances,  trush spoted everywhere, and resembles a garbage dump more than a place to play and /or  exercise.

Do you feel that Cleanliness is a personal matter and should be of no concern to anyone else. Do you really think so?

With no dispute here, adults are not always good examples of cleanliness. As adults we need to set a good example to our young children in every way of life. Our actions should reflect our teachings. The unclean personal habits of You and Me are to the greater part the result of many health problems.

CLEANLINESS, however is much more than outward appearances, looking preesentable, or smelling good. It is an all-embracing ethic of sound healthy living. In addition, a state of mind and heart involves our morals and worship.

 Physical Cleanliness – Everyone should strive to keep his or her body, home, and surroundings clean and tidy. Even  when you work around the clock, you must find time for your child’s healthy (body, mind, shelter, food &cloth); Even where water for washing or bathing is in short supply, every adult should do the best they can to keep children clean and presentable.

Caring for our personal hygiene is a loving thing to do, as we want to avoid inflicting unpleasant odors on those around us. Perfumes and colognes may be pleasant, but they are no substitute for regular bathing and / or clean clothes.

Cluttered homes or rooms are difficult to clean, and dirty hides in such congested surroundings. A clean home is the responsibility of everybody living in it…..Untidy home often start out as untidy room…Untidy kid starts out from untidy parent… A clean kid is a responsibility of the kid’s parents. Clearly, cleanliness and health are inseparable. And YES! Cultivating good habits of cleanliness now gives strong evidence of our faith in our promise of healthy living, and clean environment.

Read more and learn more about kids’ hygiene from the book, A Clean Kid Is A Healthier Kid.